...Marriages as mergers/takeovers....

A bit funny though but has lotssa parallels to be drawn. Marriages may be viewed in the same light as that of the mergers/takeovers.... they are union of different individuals/entities.

R,C, Culture, and Org...are imp in a merger situation. Same must be applicable for marriages. Revenues must go up...(both partners earnings are aggregated) , costs must go down (economies of scale via sharing resources such as house, etc), culture must match to the extent that there are no frequent awkward instances. Last but not the least, org....compatibility with partner in terms of complementary personalities (based on MBTI...Myers Briggs Type Indicator test). If both are ENTJ, it may not work out.

Anything violating this may sabotage the possibility for the best possible relationship. If it is getting too late, one may think of compromising on a few and obviously you wont get the best match but something in optimal direction.

From an individual's perspective, there are various risks in a marriage. Let us discuss one of them - that about cheating.

If an individual meets a partner in a white-knight situation, the other partner will have an obligation to remain faithful. So, the white-knight concept of takeovers works for marriages too(in a corporate takeover, the acquiring firm(white knight) tends to get a lot of support from the acquiree company). Of course, this is assuming that the loyalty test is done. This is just one of the methods to ensure absence of cheating. There are other methods too.

There must be a net value creation for both the individuals. As a married couple, their social, and economic status must be higher than the individuals left alone (Sum of the parts). This will not leave any of the partner feeling less satisfied. I dont indulge in vanity fair and hence, more than status, I feel they complement each other then it works better. So, an easy way for couples to figure this out is "what do you bring to the table?", "how do I contribute to you", "what will be the goals of this union", and "how do we combine to gain our individual goals (will be able to ?)?"

Next, we will consider the possibility of culture can play a huge role in shaping up the marriage. At times, when people from different cultures marry and if they have not given adequate thought to it, then it creates issues not thought about earlier. For instance, if an Indian girl marries a western guy, then she will get considerable flexibility in various terms but she cannot expect this guy to bend and touch the feet of her father during their meetings. He will pretty much address her dad by the first name and her dad may find this offending. (just a hypothetical possible scenario).

Personality types must be complementary - otherwise, there is a higher possibility of clashes. Moreover, it is better to have both the partners as matured individuals because the possibility of divorce is lesser for couples who married later than earlier.

Note: These are thoughts by a bachelor in a definite perspective (marriages as mergers) and they are all in forms of a guidelines instead of "rules" because "rules" cannot exist for the partner-search process. There can be guiding principles and a very small fraction has been briefly mentioned. above.

headhunt your partner !

Disenchanted by online dating, ppl turn to matchmakers. Click here for the article.

So true....I was disillusioned for sure...because ppl misrepresent themselves in their profiles and then going on a second date with such ppl are a strict no-no.

So was Bee (close friend)...cos initially she met ppl who asked her to be the "other" woman....and when I heard about it...I felt that the dating scene here is horrible. But then, I think...she got her long term relationship with John on the Internet only. I am glad she is happy with him and that they both are vacationing together !

Match-making seems to be a good concept....and it is working ..given the fact that ppl are ready to pay upto 8K GBP for such a service in UK ...and upto $25 K in US.


In another move of a radical kind, dating over lunch for busy professionals has come up in UK which is trying to bridge the gap between speed-dating and normal dating ! Check that out here.

Unmarried women targetted in elections

Can you beat that?
The level at which this will be done ?

Recently, I was talking to a VP of a startup firm who sold the firm at an attractive price. She was explaining me of how a leading beer manufacturer paid them for preventing their ads being sent to unmarried ladies ! Ads were streaming media ads.

Check out the news here !

Happy Halloween !

Wishing all my readers, a Happy Halloween !
So, Halloween is here.... Last Thursday, we had a party for the same.
MISM Fall 06 starts were all present. Surprisingly, none of the summer starts were present at the party. I wonder what they were doing on Thursday night.

In the picture next to me is Salim stabbing Udayan.... Salim wears the V for Vendetta mask.

Beers of two types were free. No food...though pizza was there initially. Beer-pizza combination is so unhealthy !



Most of the ppl were in a costume. We had some dance later on....when the UPitt students joined in. They were fun ppl.

Falling back will never be the same again...

Check out this link which says that a law will impose that daylight saving will be March-Nov instead of the current schedule. This is an interesting development !

Diwali is in the air !

Diwali coincided with the small break I had during the two minis in my program.

Check out some of the pictures taken on Diwali day ! These were taken at the SV Temple in Monroeville.

The first picture is of a cute kid at the temple - his name was Ian. His parents told me that it was the first time Ian had held sparklers !

that's kindda cute !
What is more cute is the small tie he is wearing !!

Another picture is of Varun, another kid who was visiting the temple. He was very happy for the picture being taken. I just wanted to make his day with this gesture.

I've sent Varun his picture and I hope he is happy with it.

At the temple, I was missing my family.............sooooooooooooooooo much!

So, I called up Val and Bal and went on to meet them after the temple affair. There was a bad traffic....got damn it ! It took me more than 65 mins to reach Robinsons from the temple.


Well, here's the last one....with my roomies - with the sparklers. I held these after a very very long time. It was fun to play with those !!!
Wishing all my readers a very Happy Diwali and a prosperous New Year ahead !!!

bleeding...

Last night, I was in pain. Quite a bit of blood lost with a minor injury at my lower back. I am unable to attend it now....and haven't attended it as I must've.

Now, it is asking for more and more attention. I am keeping my fingers crossed on it not giving me too much pain next week because my finals are scheduled next week.

new pictures uploaded

I have uploaded new pictures on my Flickr album.
You can reach it by clicking here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emanik/

Reservations in India

I agree with Sarathbabu's comments on reservation !

Over-indulgence !

Lately, I've been partying hard - which is not a good sign !

Over-indulgence - yeah...that's the word. I will account for it from latest backwards.

MISM party
On Friday night, our soc-coordinator invited MISM students for a party of MSIT, MISM and ISPM folks.
On the right is our soc-coordinator and MISM rep. She takes good care of the batch - given the fact that MISM is so demanding and she still manages time to coordinate these events.

Three cheers to having such a rep.



The event happened at Doc's Place. In the evening, it was pouring and was slightly cold. The place has two settings on the upper deck - indoors and outdoors.

While indoors had some music - outdoor was more fun since there was more space to move around. Outdoor was slightly chillier than inside and hence, either ppl stood near the heaters or wore sweatshirts (like I did!).

A social event like this is good to know your peers, faculty, et al in a different perspective. Andy (Ass. Dean) was telling us his stories as an MBA student of GSIA (CMU's bschool) and so was Sumitha (MISM Program director). Some of the fresh fall-06 batch students were also enjoying this event.

The turnout was not that great but I must admit that the even organizers did a good job at estimating the size of turnout!

Here's a snap of myself, Andy, and fall06 students.

Heinz party
Before this, there was an orientation party at the same place, about a week before. It was fun too. But it had wider spectrum of students since the Arts Mgmt and Public Policy Mgmt students were also part of the party then.

Not posting any pictures from that since I dont have any!


Mehrdad's graduation celebration at his place
Last night, I visited our Telecom Mgmt class's studygroup mate's place. With Telecom class, he finished his third graduation! He was BEng in Civil, then Masters in Civil, then Masters in CAD, then completed transition to IT with MSIT from CMU with Security track.

Mehrdad is Iranian and his wife is Chinese. The food was really good - Chinese and Iranian - a delight to my taste buds. Yummy !

Andy made some mango bars and I've brought quite a bit of them home so that I can relish them later.

One surprising discovery last night was knowing that lentils are not a good source of proteins. Therefore, I will have to switch to Tofu soon :-/

I know.... my travel log is yet to be completed !
I shall post it later on .

Meanwhile, I have to gear up for the companies which are going to visit the campus.

...blues...

As it is , after attending so many lectures this week, I was tired. In addition to that, I decided to push my limits and went ahead to get my airbed at 11:30 pm. In the process, I got lost in my way ( courtesy Google maps and Pittsburgh's weird roads - I hate Pittsburgh for that).

So, finally, I slept at around 2 am last night. When I woke up, I saw the TCPulse scheduler and it said that I had a review session for my Econ class at around 9 am. So, I hurried myself out of the bed at 8 am to get ready. Later, I checked out the timings again at some other location and found that it was at 3:30. However, I have my Chinese class for which I have to get my Audit form filled.

Meanwhile, I read this article and it started reminding me of old days. I recommend it to everyone who wants to come out of the regular consensual structure of the society and attain happiness.

At 2 pm, there is an exam for Java exemption. I am feeling so tired.

Fortunately, there is a party in the evening at 6 pm (courtesy Sarah Taillon - the soc-coordinator for MISM). Looking forward to that.

...on the road..

I have not blogged since 9th Aug. Many reasons - prime one is multi-tasking.

Though my eggjams got over earlier on Thursday, I have been multitasking to get my Telecom term paper done and meet Lady J who was in town for a convention.

Later, on Friday, after the paper was done, I had to work towards Startegy paper. Saturday - I expected to have a marathon and we had only 10 am to 3 pm timing in which fair amount of work was put on paper. Earlier, we didn't note whatever we got - just discussed - some effort in putting it on paper at that time itself may have reduced the aogny and delay now. Anyways, it is a good lesson to have.

Sunday - I travelled with Lady J from Pittsburgh to Wilkes Barre. Lady J's father took us out for dinner and the Chinese food was delicious! So nice of him.

Monday morning, Lady J's grandma made fresh bread - I have never consumed anything like that. It was awesome. Then we travelled from Wilkes Barre to Hanover, New Hampshire. On our journey, I found some of the places exotic - Woodstock, (some red Indian name I dun remember), and a gorge. I saw Dartmouth campus that evening. At Lady J's place we saw DDLJ - she bought the DVD due to her Bollywood affinity.

Tuesday morning, I went from Hanover to NYC via Boston. I met my high school buddy Om after a very long time. Om and Preeti are such a cute couple. They are good hosts too!

Wednesday, I met some acquaintances in NYC till evening. Finally, I wound up in a Tavern with a trader friend from an investment bank.

Late in the evening on Wednesday, I met Darshan and Mukul - my friends from undergrad college and now working for Goldman Sachs and engaged now.

They gave me a treat for their engagement - Kathi rolls - they were similar to Frankies and I took the Masala Aloo roll.

We hung around in Times Square a bit and then I took off. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn there was a fire in the subway and I was stuck on the other side. I shall blog one more post for details of NYC that I got to know this time.

Meanwhile, the Strategy term paper which was due on Aug 16th was allowed to be postponed to Aug 17th. I have working my ass off for the same since I used to have long days and then in the night I worked around the paper. 2 nights I have worked till 8:30 in the morning - O.M.G. - had we not postponed it - the agony would have been lesser.

On Friday evening, I shall leave for Boston to reach Adwait's place around midnight, if traffic doesn't delay the journey.

Etiquettes...

I read a small pocket-sized book on ettiquettes.

I asked a few colleagues at CMU - "What does the word Etiquette bring up in your mind ?"

Answers included:
-punctuality
-dinner sense
-formal scenario behavior sense

However, this small book defined ettiquette as a way of living. It is difficult for a person to be one person with more important ppl and another person with lesser important ppl. Respect is the key to having good etiquettes. Hence, etiquettes should be implemented in every facet of life. If you are requesting something to someone then use "please" (that includes banging the ringing the bell at midnight to get in the house by housemates too!). Convey thank-you for every good deed someone did to you. Never cut queues. Treat everyone equally well- be it your boss or be it the cashier at the superstore. This is to make it a habit!

Right from pettiquettes to cell phone conversations in public places, everything involves etiquettes. Email involves etiquettes(Prof Ed Barr taught us) and of course every other activity involves etiquettes. Etiquettes even affects your children since they tend to have behavior of their parents/guardians imprinted on their minds. Even rejecting your date involves etiquettes!

One of the surprising discoveries I had while reading the book was as follows:
While you are trying to convey condolences you should not say "I can understand how you feel". Instead, the usage of "We are sorry for the demise and we shall miss him/her" is more appropriate. Ppl say things they are not supposed to say because they dont know what to say!

Another surprising discovery was that fidgeting is not regarded as a good body-language while in a lecture hall or while conversing.

Those who do consider learning more about etiquettes must read this book. It took me about 65 mins to read it entirely. About 150 pages (quarter size of a regular book's page).

divorce culture !

Is accepting divorce culture a One way downward spiral for the society?

A particularly good lifecycle stages paper is here.
I liked the idea of "multiple marriages" with the same spouse ! - its like introducing newer products in technological life cycles.

Interesting report on 10 year marital quality can be checked out here . In summary, this report says that - the moment you are married - the perceived quality lowers in the first 4 years - then plateaus for next 3 years and then nosedives rapidly till year 10.

...of Strategy and pre-nup....

Prof Lamar put pre-nup as an example for contracts in course of Strategic Corporate Management!

btw, the point is besides that - he also mentioned -

If all the couples had a pre-nup then it would save quite a bit of money for the economy and also, reduce burden on the judicial system.

This reminds me the case of a guy in AT&T who lost more than a 100k in trying to get custody of his kids from his ex-wife ! I had never seen him but all the interactions were over the phone. However, others who had worked with him closely (pun intended) told me that he took advantage of his good looks - hence, fidelity may have been one of the points for divorce by his spouse. She got married soon and this guy couldn't since he had 2 child supports and a 100k debt ! Later, his girlfriend had a kid and is not ready to get married and so, he pays for her kid too !

Coming back to strategy - I asked him a question (which a lady had expressed while having a similar discussion) - the lady partner says - "You dont trust me !" Well, professor didn't want to get into controversy but I knew what he wanted to say - "Given the current social system and the current stats of guys having only 15% chance of winning any divorce case, this is a good balancer"

Now, my take on this from Strategy and game theory perspective:

-Having a pre-nup forces the lady to work and pay less attention to family since the guy can leave her anytime and she might be left helpless if she kept on handling the family and the guy kept on building his career.

- However, if there's no pre-nup the lady is incentivized to misbehave since she would get both allimony (till the time she gets a job or gets married again) and child support (along with the kid). There is no incentive for him not to leave atleast on financial terms.
If there's no pre-nup then he would fear the consequences of divorce (allimony, child support) and hence, behave.

I have simply presented two specific possibilities and they indicate that pre-nups are a must and the lady must also build her career (if she doesn't trust her guy). Developed world has its own set of problems and this is one of them.

The fact remains that divorces have high costs unless they are mutual and silent. The lawyers make a huge chunk of money out of these cases. Also, you would then say - in a relation as sacred as marriage - when do you say - enough is enough? - I would say "Never" [assuming ur original choice was good]

...blogging almost after a week

This blog deals with the degree of change in lifestyle in this mini vis-a-vis last mini.

The theme for the current mini is Collaboration - quite a few group projects - for assignments, projects, etc. Reminds me of my Project Management days !

I have been sleeping late - at midnight or later instead of regular 10:30 pm.
Also, I haven't been getting up early.

Am I tired ?
Am I burnt ?
Have I lost interest ?

However, for my personal goal achievement - should it matter ?
I have to spring back - back in action, more organized than I am right now.

I should not let a couple of deadbeat project-mates kill my enthusiasm (- its one of the tenets in "The 8th Habit"). ...The Show must Go On..~!

Last weekend was good on the perspective that I finally talked with a friend I could resonate with !... we talked and talked..... for 2 hours. Intelligent and thinking entity - she is so much enthused with the Indian culture that she has researched on it to an extent that she knows more about Bhangra than I do. She seems to be a voracious reader.

Synchronous to this, I met someone on Sat evening (friend's friend) - right at the time we greeted each other, I felt this wont work and it didn't ! I was trying at every moment to almost end the meeting - probably would not meet again.

86,900

Yeah - that's the score I hit on Pac-Man !
I've made it to 67k a couple of times - but never to 86,900 - Level 09 and banana as the fruit - wow - what a game !

Book: Everything I wanted to know about men, I learnt from my dog

Well, a very verbose title - but catchy and effective.
The author wrote Sex and the City too.

I read the book Blink at the Starbucks on Murray Ave till the time the person I was waiting for could turn up on Friday evening. She was an hour late - but that's fine - since I was reading a book anyways. By the time she came, I had alaready read about 49 pages of the book.

Blink was recommended by Prof Chris Labach, Professional speaking faculty for MISM. Blink had a few good examples such as the statue-authencity and Gottman's ability to predict the strength of marriage for a couple from their interactions. By the time the first piece of readin got over - there she cometh. I went to keep the book back on the shelf while she was browsing through a few cookbooks (she cooks exotic dishes !). Well, by the way, she said, look at this title ! Everything I wanted to know about men, I learnt from my dog- I read the name of the author - Staples, "Sex and the City", I replied. She said - Lets read this.

At the back of my mind, I was processing, what does she mean by "Let us" - this is a book to be read by women without men in their vicinity ! Anyways, we took 2 copies and in one hour - we were both done with it.

The author draws interesting parallels between dogs and men - some meaningful and some ridiculous. Also, socio-cultural background plays a role. That reminded me of Neha - she had once told me that her mom-in-law had explained to her how all men are dogs. I could now understand why she might've said that. Overall- hilarious, insightful, witty, and wise.

Fanatics strike again ...

The western suburbs of Mumbai, India - were hit by a series of 8 bomb blasts that unleashed panic and chaos. The same railway line which I travelled for 8 years - one after the other - stations were blasted.

Death toll is 170 and counting.
I would reserve my comments since I am emotion-laden at this stage.

Women on top ...

Myself and my neighbour were discussing on this topic just last night. [He is a Jew and was grilling steak and hotdogs along with another friend.] - Gurls are evidently beating the guys in the western world !

Today, the same is in the NY Times here.
At college, women are leaving men in dust !

That's exactly what the title reads.

So, are western women more sensible than the guys ?
It is arguable - my professor for Emotional Intelligence and Leadership - Ms. Smith - indicates that women have comparative advantage in certain facets due to the way they are wired genetically and evolutionarily.

Well, from personal experience I have found that women have many a times outshone guys on the academic front.

So, now, the question is - then why are there lesser ladies in engineering schools in India ? Take IITs for example - you would barely see a female there.

First, the answer lies in what Ms. Smith taught once - men use one side of brain intensely than flip-floping whereas ladies flip-flop between the right and the left brain. If a guy is using right then he would keep on using the right side and if the left then he would keep on using the left.

Second, Indian girls are at a disadvantage due to the parents discouraging them from entering such competitions. A few exceptional cases would always argue with me but I am speaking for the majority of Indian females.

Would this trend repeat in India ? Well, once India becomes a developed economy - it may have a similar trend. One can hypothesize a scenario in which more number of ladies take up advanced education and constantly outperform their male peers. It has started happening in software services firms like Infosys already !

For example, an ex-roomie married a girl of his batch- the girl was going to be promoted before him - wow ! She has a higher pay than him already. :) Not that I want to rub in to him but yes, he too made some sacrifices for her and she cannot take complete credit for the same.

Well, I would not like to predict ....and hence, lets watch what happens.
Hail - the gurl power !